I explained my spill, but left Dwight out of it. “Where’s the boyfriend?” I inquired.
“He’s washing up. Mom, you’re gonna love him . . . Maybe he could look at your head! You know he’s a second year resident doctor . . .” she bragged to me for the umpteenth time.
No sooner had we spoken of him than Raj came out into the garden. He was born in the USA, a first generation American of Pakistani parents. His olive skin and green eyes were striking. His six-foot two inch frame seemed to glide across the lawn toward us. I extended my hand, but he embraced me instead.
“Mom, this is Raj,” Lily said.
“I see that!”
Raj frowned a little at my bandage.
“It’s no big deal. A couple of stitches.” I was beginning to feel self conscious.
“Well, I could look at it if you like,” Raj offered.
“Mom?” I turned to see Phoebe at the back door. My heart jumped. She looked amazing. Her hair was cropped short and dyed red. Although she was a natural blonde, the red set off the small freckles on her nose and her huge green eyes. She ran toward Lily and me, and we all formed a ring-around-the-rosy embrace. I wasn’t prepared for the emotions that swept through me. I had both my girls in my arms at the same time.
“I want to hug, too!” My mother called from behind a bramble bush. When Mother joined in, I could sense her confusion about what we were doing. When we broke the circle, we stood smiling at one another, commenting on each other’s hair, shoes, the great weather, Phoebe said she had a surprise. “Now, don’t be mad Mom,” she warned.
“What is it? The pony I never got as a child?” I laughed watching her disappear back into the house.
Only seconds later, she returned leading a man by the arm. I blinked a few times to make certain I was seeing straight. Phoebe had brought her father . . . Brad!
“Big girls don’t cry. Big girls don’t cry . . .” rang out in my head before I hit the dirt.
I gather Dr. Raj carried me into the house, laying me on the sofa. He checked my jugular vein for a pulse and made sure my pupils were not fixed and dilated. I could hear Brad’s voice swimming in my head. He was commenting on how he thought I had outgrown the fainting spells and couldn’t believe it still happened. The voice in my head attacked him “Well, you might know these things if you hadn’t wrecked our marriage, you schmuck.”
When I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by the entire household. Even Vilma had a glass of water for me. I wondered if I was supposed to drink it or if she was standing by to throw it in my face. I sat up protesting that all was fine . . . low blood sugar . . . I explained. “What are you doing here?” I asked my ex-husband, my words hitting him squarely between the eyes.
“Mom please . . . It’s my fault, not Dad’s. I asked him to come.”
“Well, thanks for the warning,” I shot back.
Brad knelt down beside the couch. I scanned his face to see if he had changed. He looked the same as he always had. A few new lines around his mouth and eyes, a crop circle of vanishing hair on top of his head, but he was still quite handsome. “I’m sorry for surprising you, Sarah,” he said in a hushed tone. “My life’s a mess right now, and I didn’t want to be alone over the holiday.”
“So what . . . you expect me to take care of you?” Everyone began slowly backing out of the living room, to leave us alone. “Look, Brad. I’m sorry, but honestly, I haven’t seen you in ages. We barely speak other than formal e-mails occasionally, and all of a sudden you are in my parents’ home acting as though everything is the same between us? How did you think I’d react?”
I waited a second for a reply, but Brad looked down at the floor.
“Things aren’t hunky dory for me at the moment either,” I said, at which point the flood gates opened and Brad began crying.
“Oh man . . . don’t cry!” I thought. I can’t resist a crying man.
He collected himself and explained that his little miss muff had left him for a local pediatrician and had withdrawn money from his bank account without his knowledge. Furthermore, his mother had a benign lump removed from her breast, and they had to put her old sheepdog down, too.
“You had to put Sadie down?” I asked with a lump in my throat. Brad nodded and cried some more.
“God, I loved that dog. Look,” I said, sitting up. “It’s fine that you’re here . . . I just don’t want you staying in the house, okay? Find a room somewhere and have Thanksgiving dinner with us. That’s fine.” Echoing a scene in one of my books, Brad, still kneeling, kissed the back of my hand and thanked me. It reminded me of what I had written years earlier in The Prince and the Pupil.
His Highness, still on one knee, took my hand in his and slowly brought it to his lips. I felt my heart fluttering deep within my chest as his lips parted and rested on top of my hand. I felt his moist tongue lightly touching my fingers. Looking around, he made sure no one could tell what was happening, as he flicked his tongue in between my fingers. I was reminded of where he had placed his tongue earlier that day.
It was morning and I sat in my room. I had finished my needlepoint the evening before, and I had completed the lesson over an hour ago. As I awaited his arrival, I looked at my assignment one more time. Hearing a tap on my door, I set down my writings.
“Enter,” I called out, knowing it was the Prince. I tried to remain calm and very much a lady when I saw him in the doorway. I tried to hide the shivers that raced through my body in anticipation of what I knew was to come.
Closing the door, the Prince walked over to where I was seated. He fell to his knees in front of me. Never uttering a word, he slowly lifted my skirts, high above my waist and pulled my hips toward him. With expert precision, he placed his tongue between my legs. I watched the future King taste me as if I were his last supper.
But this evening in the great hall, we play acted. Sitting on opposite sides of the table neither relishing our meal, we hoped we were lending no suspicion to the true goings on between us. He rose slowly, pushing his plate aside. He looked at me, his eyes beckoning “Come see me later.” I noticed the bulge within his riding pants and I knew he was without his codpiece.
Phoebe had vanished into the kitchen to check on all the food. When I joined her she began to apologize again. “Mom, I’m so sorry, dad called and was crying. I didn’t know what to do!”
“It’s fine, Phoebs,” I said. The whole thing was typical of him! Involving his daughter in the drama he created for himself, really pissed me off!
“I just wished you had warned me, that’s all. We’ll make it work somehow,” I told her how happy I was that she and her sister were with me for the Holiday. “Where is Lily by the way?” I asked.
“Chanting.”
“Chanting?” I repeated.
“In the garden. With Raj. They chant twice a day. It’s a good thing, Mom.”
I left the kitchen and began to take stock of the whereabouts of the household. Manuel had gone upstairs, Brad was on his phone in the driveway, Mother was lying down in her room. I stood in the hallway feeling like Alice through the looking glass. Who were these people I call my family?
Brad came in and announced he’d gotten a room at the motor inn.
“That’s where my brother is staying,” I said.
“I know,” Brad replied. “I spoke to him yesterday. He told me.”
“You spoke to Henry? How often do you talk to my brother?”
“Not that often . . . maybe once a month.”
I was so confused. Why would my ex-husband and my brother communicate that often or at all? Rather than start something, I went back into the kitchen just in time to help Phoebe with some more prep work.
Lily and Raj had resurfaced and were having a snack. “Raj brought homemade brownies for tomorrow,” Lily said with pride.
“Yum! Your grandma will be happy. She loves brownies . . . at least if she remembers she does.”
“Is Grandma really that bad?” Lily asked.
I nodded a
nd told the girls about losing her at the market, forgetting what her sweater was and other disturbing behavior that had occurred since my stay. “I’m going to begin investigating a few options next week. I want to find a place for grandma, somewhere she can be safe.”
Both my daughter’s faces registered something. I turned to see my mother standing in the doorway. My heart sank.
“Where do you plan on putting me?” she asked.
“Mom,” I stopped, trying to consider what to say. “Nothing has been decided yet.” I could tell she wasn’t buying it.
“Well, you have to do what you think is right, I suppose,” she said and turned to leave. I watched Mother’s head drop as she walked away. It was difficult for me to know if she was comprehending what we were thinking or not.
“Oh, dear Lord.” I spoke the words out loud. Lily came to me and wrapped her arms around me. I didn’t want to cry. I shouldn’t cry, but I felt that catch in my throat. “I really don’t know what to do!” I whispered into Lily’s neck.
The house vibrated all day. Phoebe could be heard in the kitchen, working on her knife skills, chopping her vegetables. Lily had taken Mother into the rose garden and the two of them were gathering flowers for the table centerpiece. Manuel seemed a little out of place, but chopped more wood and stocked the fire place. Raj drove Brad over to the motor inn so he could check in. I was praying Brad wouldn’t pry too much about Raj and Lily’s relationship. I had to admit, there was a feeling of comfort having all my family together under one roof.
Not long after the sun set, someone decided we should order Chinese food and play charades. Must have been Brad’s idea to do the charades considering that is what his life has been! Henry called to say that he had crashed at the motel and would see us tomorrow. Manuel disappeared into the UFO, probably feeling like the outsider.
We sat on the floor in the living room in front of the fire eating out of our to-go boxes with chopsticks. The smell of burning wood and kung pao wafted through the house.
Teams for charades were chosen while I was in the bathroom. I ended up on Brad’s team. Swell! It was mother, Lily, and Phoebe against Brad, Raj, and myself . . . two men I hardly know. I drew the number one, which meant I went first. I picked my clue and opened the small piece of paper. “The unbearable lightness of being . . .”
Swell!
I put up my hands in my imaginary book and camera poses.
Brad yelled, “Book . . . and movie!”
I nodded. I held up five fingers.
“Five words!” Brad screamed.
I nodded. I held up two fingers.
“Second word!” Raj joined in.
I nodded. I slapped two fingers on my arm.
“Second word! We know that!! Raj already guessed . . .” Brad was already driving me nuts.
I shook my head no, furiously.
“Two syllables!!” Raj yelled.
I nodded. I again tapped my arm with two fingers.
“Second syllable!” Brad guessed.
I nodded, wanting to kill him. I threw up my hands, positioning them like claws and bared my teeth.
“TIGER! LION! MONSTER! HANNABAL LECTER!” They both screamed at me simultaneously.
Oy . . . This was getting old! I shook my head.
“BEAR!” Raj got it.
I nodded.
“THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING!!!” Brad screamed.
I nodded, touching my finger to my nose longing to flip him off with the other hand.
Our team won.
Mother hung in there guessing “Mary Poppins” based on Phoebe trying to look like a jack in the box or someone on a pogo stick. How Mother guessed the right answer from those clues was amazing, but she continued guessing Mary Poppins with every other clue for the rest of the game.
I experienced an unexpected longing for my father in the midst of it all. Though he loathed charades, he was very proficient at the game. I missed my father terribly when I climbed the stairs to my room, to his old room. This Christmas would be three years without him.
The constant beeping noise from the heart monitor almost drove me insane. I couldn’t help trying to keep up with the beat of it, tapping my toes, or my fingers, in unison to the little blips. Mother, Henry and I took turns with the Daddy shift. Mother was the morning/ late afternoon shift. I took the evening until around ten or eleven, and Henry did the all-nighter. He was a doctor after all and used to those hours.
Dad had been in the hospital for five days. He had suffered another massive heart attack, and this time it didn’t look good. He was slack jawed, his mouth wide open, his cheeks sunken, and his skin void of any color. Sometimes his eyes would flutter, and we would get excited, but there was no light behind them. No life force. On May 23rd at 4:30 p.m., on my sentry, Dad opened his eyes and looked right at me.
“Sarah!” he said. His voice was raspy. I had been reading The Grapes of Wrath to him. He loved Steinbeck.
“Daddy!!!” I sat on his bed next to him and put my head on his chest. I could hear his heart thumping like a sixteen-year-old. It sounded good.
“Sarah, tell your mother it was always her. No one else . . . only her that I loved.” He coughed.
I looked into my father’s face. He was fully there. I knew he wasn’t delusional or saying things because of the drugs. He was the strong man I had known and loved my whole life. I couldn’t hold back my tears.
“I will tell her, Dad.”
And then, the ever-present beeping turned into a single long note. I held my dad and I could feel him go. He suddenly became lighter in my arms as if he had left his body.
“Oh God, Dad, please not yet!!!” I called to him. Almost as soon as I asked him not to go, I felt his body drop back into himself. He became heavy in my arms again and breathed in a huge breath. He was back! Once again the monitor beeped, and he opened his eyes. A nurse had quietly slipped in.
“Looks like he wasn’t quite ready,” she said and smiled. Dad looked at me again. “I love you, Sarah,” he said. A wonderful peacefulness appeared on his face. “You and Henry have made me proud . . .” He paused. “I saw Rachel . . . an angel.” And with that, he closed his eyes, never to open them again.
I called my mother and Henry. I could tell by my mother’s voice that she resented that dad had departed on my watch. When Henry and Mother arrived at the hospital mother went into his room first. Looking stoic as usual, she entered and stayed for almost an hour. If she cried, we never saw it.
Although one hears how difficult it is losing a parent obviously no one knows how it will affect you until it actually happens. Seventy years old seemed ancient to me when I was younger. Now that I am closer to that number myself, it seems unfair that my dad went at that age. Over the years we had become much closer. Having children of my own made it easier for me to understand and accept his foibles. When he finally passed I think we had come to the basic understanding that we loved each other and he did the best that he could as a father.
I had been to several funerals, beginning, of course, with Rachel’s. The day of his funeral was perfect. The scent of rosemary and lavender perfumed the air. Dad would have loved it. The sun was high in the sky with only a few wispy clouds. We were relieved that Mother had chosen not to have an open casket, mostly because dad would have hated that. So many people came from his past and present to say their farewells. Mother was gracious in welcoming everyone and assumed the role of the grieving widow perfectly.
As dad was about to be laid to rest next to Rachel, I noticed a lone figure, standing a slight distance from us watching the proceedings. It was Helen. She looked so old and frail. When she and my father had their affair, she must have been quite a bit older than he.
In the early days I had done a book of erotic vignettes titled Hot Chocolate and Stilettos. One was about the older woman/younger man scenario . . .
Who knew back then that I would find myself having amazing sex with someone who may not even know who The Beatles were. My father act
ed out his scenario with Helen and now I was playing out a similar dynamic with Dwight.
The Musician’s Mistress . . .
It had been entirely her fault and she knew it. She had only herself to blame that her heart had been shattered into dust. She couldn’t help being drawn to the young musician with the dancing eyes. When he spoke, the words were melodies to her ears. She had been a slave to her marriage, giving everything she had to a man who only wanted to control her. She bore his five beautiful children, kept an immaculate house, prepared fine dinners each night. The love that she felt early on had become a distant memory. She knew that he lusted for other women, while she hungered for love.
When she was with the young man who had captured her attention many months ago, she never wanted to leave. They sat close to one another, uncertain in these uncharted waters. It wasn’t proper for a Southern woman to be alone with a man who wasn’t her husband. The world was different now, she justified. Life for all those around changed that day when President Kennedy was killed. There had been a tangible shift on the planet and in her heart. She threw caution to the wind, realizing how short life is.
After graduating Julliard, the musician found himself in many places for short periods of time. Being first violinist for the New York Philharmonic was quite a commitment. The young protégé brought a lot of attention to the orchestra.
This had been the longest length of stay on the tour. He liked the South. After meeting her that night, he grew to love it even more.
How does one explain an instant connection? All the two of them knew was that when they first looked into each other’s eyes it was as if they had known one another before. He had slipped his number at the hotel to her that first night. He couldn’t believe he had been so brazen, but he worried he might never see her again. He was surprised when she called two days later.
For her, their meeting had a powerful effect. She didn’t know why she would call a young man she had only just met to plan a clandestine meeting. This was not something she ever imagined doing.
When Angels Cry Page 14